the fisherman
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Letter to my friend Alvaro Mutis
One day in the 90s, we were walking down the street, leaving the Hôtel des Saints-Pères, and Alvaro Mutis1 stopped dead in his tracks. We were almost at the corner of Rue de Grenelle, and he said to me: "Emmanuel, I have the impression that we walked like this together a long time ago in a street in Cadiz. And we Continue reading
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Alvaro Mutis on the monarchy
The paradox, quite painful for me, is that I was already a royalist from a very young age. I could almost say, since childhood. My first readings of history led me to look for where the monarchy came from and how it worked. I know perfectly well that the monarchy, as I understand it and as other eras have experienced it, is now unthinkable.[…] Continue reading
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Excerpt from Le Hussard. Poem by Alvaro Mutis
[…] The hundred-year-old must of wine, which is sprinkled with water in the cellars. The power of his arm and his bronze shadow. The stained-glass window that recounts his loves and recalls his last battle darkens a little more each day under the smoke of lamps fed with bad oil. Like the howl of a siren Continue reading
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Night. Poem by Alvaro Mutis
Fever attracts the song of an androgynous bird, opening the way to the insatiable pleasure that branches out and crosses the body of the earth. Oh! the fruitless navigation around the islands Where women offer the traveler the fresh balance of their breasts And the terrifying sound in the hollow of their hips! The tender skin Continue reading
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Another stopover...
Alvaro Mutis is a great writer and, what's more, one of my dearest friends. Since he hasn't published any books for a few years, I thought I'd pay him a little tribute with quotes from "The Last Stop of the Tramp Steamer," a short novel full of Continue reading